Golden Globe Nod to DiCaprio and Five Nominations for ‘Carol’

December 10, 2015 2:26 PM

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LOS ANGELES — Leonardo DiCaprio, still chasing his first Oscar victory, edged closer to Hollywoods top laurels on Thursday, as he took a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “The Revenant,” a bloody frontier drama that was also nominated for best drama and best director.

But the big winner in the movie categories was “Carol,” which took a nominations for best drama, along with a best director nomination for Todd Haynes, acting nominations for Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, and a nomination for best score. “The Big Short,” a late entry in the race, took nominations ...

None of the actors from “Spotlight” were nominated, though the film’s cast — which includes Liev Schreiber, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and Michael Keaton — had just been nominated for a Screen Actors Guild award.

Thursday morning’s nominations announcement came barely a week after a mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., about 70 miles east of Beverly Hills. There was no mention of the attack. But an earlier mass attack in Paris had clouded festivities at the Governors Awards ceremony of the in November, where questions about propriety, sobriety and vulnerability were in the air.

And the press association apparently really is done with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who hosted the ceremony for the last three years; their coming comedy “Sisters” got nothing, while “Spy” and “Trainwreck” each got a pair of mentions.

Streaming services dominated the nominees for best television comedy, with series from Hulu, Amazon and Netflix picking up nominations, while HBO had its usual strong showing and ABC’s “American Crime” picked up several nods.

Notwithstanding David O. Russell’s “Joy,” a dramedy that stars Jennifer Lawrence as the inventor of the Miracle Mop, it so far has been a fairly joyless film season. Picture after picture has come up short — “Steve Jobs,” “Everest,” “Our Brand Is Crisis,” “Freeheld,” “Truth” and “Crimson Peak” were among the underperformers — leaving those who grant awards, including the Hollywood Foreign Press Association with its Globes, to close the enthusiasm gap.

Among the major studio films, Ridley Scott’s “The Martian,” a 3-D blockbuster starring Matt Damon as a kind of Robinson Crusoe on Mars, has been buoyed both by a strong audience response, and perhaps by a sense that Mr. Scott, like Mr. DiCaprio, is overdue for honors.

Even Mark Ruffalo had to be scratching his head over his nomination for best comedic actor for “Infinitely Polar Bear,” a tiny independent film, with $1.4 million in global ticket sales. “The Martian,” the serious story of a stranded astronaut, was nominated as a comedy. Despite giving “Steve Jobs” four nominations, voters could not find room for it among the 15 slots devoted to picture or director.

They led the way for a small group of leading prize contenders that included “The Revenant,” from 20th Century Fox and New Regency; “The Martian,” also from Fox; “Joy,” yet another Fox film; and “Spotlight,” from Open Road Films.

In a sharp reversal of past patterns, Netflix, a relative upstart, captured eight television nominations, beating HBO, which had seven. Last year, HBO had 15 nods. Showtime also appears to have been dented by the streaming upstarts. It took just three nominations, down from nine last year.

The press association has worked hard in recent years to rid itself of a reputation for off-the-wall nominations designed more to populate the banquet with stars than honor the year’s best in film and television. Thursday’s list contained no outright embarrassments — as when Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie were nominated in 2011 for their work in the derided film “The Tourist” — but there were some quirks.

Among smaller films, “Spotlight” has beaten the gloom. After well-received festival appearances in Venice; Telluride, Colo; and Toronto, the newspaper drama, about The Boston Globe’s investigation of child abuse and a Catholic Church cover-up, has done well in a relatively confined theatrical release, and now has a shot at the top Oscar.

But the big winner in the movie categories was “Carol,” which took a nomination for best drama, along with a best director nomination for Todd Haynes, acting nominations for Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, and a nomination for best score. “The Big Short,” a late entry in the race, took nominations for two actors, Christian Bale and Steve Carell, for its script, and for best picture in the musical or comedy category.

A best drama and a best director nomination for George Miller’s “Mad Max: Fury Road” brought that film out of the pack, toward the front of the seasonal contenders. “Room” likewise received a best drama nomination, a triumph for its small distributor, A24. Three nominations for “The Danish Girl,” including one for best actor for Eddie Redmayne’s transgender portrayal, keeps Universal’s Focus Features unit very much in the awards game, though it has put strong emphasis on commercial bets lately.